


moving parts

by sparxwrites



Series: Critical Role hc_bingo [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Curses, Disability, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Panic Attacks, Self-Worth Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-12 00:52:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7914046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prematurely white hair was the first gift Orthax gave Percy – along with the guns, of course, the blueprints of his elegant murder machines burned into the insides of his eyelids – but it certainly wasn’t the last.</p><p>He didn’t notice the other gifts, for a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	moving parts

Prematurely white hair was the first gift Orthax gave Percy – along with the guns, of course, the blueprints of his elegant murder machines burned into the insides of his eyelids – but it certainly wasn’t the last.

He didn’t notice the other gifts, for a while. There were things to do, a conclave of dragons to deal with, injuries to be tended to, food and sleep to be grabbed whenever possible. Orthax’s myriad of friendly little presents, quietly ticking time-bombs, weren’t so noticeable then, not when they were all always tired and hurting anyways. They had Pike and Scanlan and healing potions on hand, besides, ways to magically bolster them and smooth the aches away for a little while longer.

When the conclave was gone, though, Thordak finally slain and the world slowly, slowly rebuilding… when they found their way back to the keep, their home, half-ruined but still habitable, and settled in to recuperate and recover and just _breathe_ , for the first time in a year. Then, he began to notice.

It was just little things at first. Small aches and pains, a tiredness he couldn’t seem to shift. Smoke drifting out his mouth and nose, sometimes, when the air was too cold – he coughed it out in uneven exhalations, throat tickling and raw, lungs a size too small. His joints seemed rusty, as if punishing him for the overwork they’d done during the past months. Rather than easing during the respite, his hand tremors grew worse, as the nightmares of cities burning and friends dying all around him reached their peak.

The nightmares faded – eventually – in the month that followed. The tremors did not.

He ignored it for as long as he could, squinting through his glasses and breathing through dusty lungs and gritting his teeth through the pain, until he could ignore it no longer. He went to Pike, then, after the aches spread to his hands, and then his fingers, muscles tight enough that it hurt like knives to rest his hand flat on the table. Tinkering had long-since become an almost impossible pastime, his hands too unsteady and painful for any kind of delicate work – and that, more than anything, was what drove him to seek her help. He missed being helpful, being _useful_. Having a purpose.

Pike sat him down on a chair, when he came to her, brow furrowed at the stiffness of his movements. She took his glasses off carefully, delicately, oversized in her small hands – and he couldn’t help but smile at that, the quiet reverence of it familiar despite all that had changed. Then she pressed her palms to his temples, and the holy light of Sarenrae flooded inside him like a welcoming sunrise, and it felt a little like coming home.

Except… except it didn’t, the usual warmth a burn-painful itch, the light of it searing rather than soft. It was an effort not to flinch from her touch, to cower.

He was no cleric, no healer, had no knowledge of magic or religion or medicine. But like this, with healing magic painful and _wrong_ through every inch of him, even he could feel it. The powder-black smoke encasing every joint in his body, silent and malignant. A tiny serpent of dark magic curled around each bone, hissing furiously at the intruding light, coiling ever-tighter to resist being dislodged until he could bear it no longer, until he cried out from the crushing agony of it, and-

When he buckled forward as her hands left his head, gasping for breath through the blurring of his vision and the lack of air in his lungs, he saw Pike’s face through the haze. He saw her face, and the tight press of her lips, and the tears in her eyes, and he _knew_.

She told him it was out of her area of expertise, later, when he was breathing again and the pain had dulled from a starburst to the now-familiar ache settled deep in his bones. That it looked like there was something wrong, but he should probably go someone who knew more, could give him a better idea of what was going on – that she’d go with him, if he wanted. 

He smiled, and nodded, and thanked her, cupped her cheek with half-curled fingers that shook and kissed the top of her head, even though he already knew.

The clerics at the temple they went to gave him a more thorough looking-over, hands all over his body poking and prodding in ways he didn’t appreciate but tolerated anyways, jaw tight and eyes distant. They were the ones that first said the word _cursed_. First started talking about _chronic_ and _degenerative_. First sat him down and held his shaking hands and told him in clear, calm, clinical words that what he had couldn’t be fixed. That they could treat the pain, could help with the tremors and the stiffness, ease the muscle tightness, but that this was his life now.

This was his _body_ , now. This was him, clumsy and broken and useless at the one thing he’d been good at, been _useful_ at, and that he would have to learn to make his peace with that.

He listened, and nodded, and thanked them quietly. Paid them. Got up and walked out of the temple, Pike trailing silently behind him, a hundred questions and platitudes on her tongue that he was so grateful to her for holding in. They both walked back to the keep in silence, Percy hunched and limping a little, hands hidden inside his pockets and dark smoke wisping from the corner of his mouth.

The minute they were inside, his knees buckled, dropping him to the floor in the entrance hall as he fought to breathe through the wheezing smoke in his lungs and the way his chest had tightened in silent panic. The words _pain management_ and _palliative care_ ran circles around in his head until he could hear nothing other than the ringing in his ears and the too-loud beat of his own struggling heart.

When Pike crouched next to him, afterwards, stroking his hair and holding his hand – his fingers broken-clawed and aching, trembling against hers, old beyond their years – and promising him he was going to be okay, he tried to believe her. He tried so very, very hard.

**Author's Note:**

> the first fill for my hc_bingo card, for the prompt “cursed”, because disabled / chronically ill percy is weirdly important to me for some reason, and i’ve wanted to write some for a while. title is from "touch" by sleeping at last: "invisible machinery / these moving parts inside of me / they've been shutting down for quite some time / leaving only rust behind"
> 
> come talk to me @sparxwrites on tumblr about critical role angst and hurt/comfort.


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